Where I work in Texas players do not have to be present to be listed in the book.
I don't know about other areas, but in Texas the governing authority is NOT the NFHS...it is the Texas University Interscholastic League. Now, they happen to have adopted the NFHS rules (with minor exceptions) for basketball but that is, in no way, to be construed as ackowledgement that the NFHS has final say...the UIL retains that right.
I would imagine the same holds true in other states...there is a state organization that governs sanctioned school sporting events. As one old timer pointed out to me years ago...the NFHS is not God...in Texas, God is the UIL.
